


A Blue Ghost

by FreeTraderBeowulf



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Alice has a pixie girlfriend, Alternate Timeline, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, M/M, Margo and Eliot's POV, Margo does some shady shit, Minor Character(s), Timeline Shenanigans, angsty as hell, everyones fucking gay, fargo - Freeform, fuck the producers, minor- Alice Quinn/Julia Wicker, niffin! quentin, queliot, sapphic life in the day, someone becomes the beast no spoilers, they go to the underworld
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-03-07 05:51:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 17,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18867040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreeTraderBeowulf/pseuds/FreeTraderBeowulf
Summary: In timeline 12 Quentin niffined out to defeat the beast and save his friends. Years later, Margo's cleaned up Jane's mess, Eliot's high king, people have moved on. It's not until Margo gets a message about the blue ghost haunting Brakebills she realizes the past isn't really behind them, and Eliot knows he won't let Quentin die twice.





	1. The Blue Ghost

The mirror was quite a normal one, as those things went. A source of pride, vanity; sickness and shame. They leak magic.

 

No one quite knows why, by logic anything that carries a reflection should act as such but it doesn't. Margo supposed it was something about the formality. Something about how contained, concentrated it was. It could hold you, and there was nothing you could hide. Years after Margo had left Brakebills behind, she received a message from the dean. A blue ghost was haunting the campus.

 

He would appear in a mirror, staring, watching. Sometimes it's hands would be pressed flush against it, and the mirror would crackle with blue electricity. Professor Lispen had apparently gotten a nasty burn. Margo came right away.

 

“Fogg, why do you think Quentins here? He's a niffin for christs sake.”

 

“Would you care to look at it? It's fucking Quentin.”

 

“Do I have to say it again? NIFFIN. He's dead, he died trying to save Alice from the beast.”

 

“And I recall with the energy transfer spell he pulled left her plain old dead.”

 

“She was already dead. And he killed the beast, he ended the loop. End of fucking story.”

 

“And you never saw him again.”

 

“Yes, because he died. The Quentin we knew--died.”

 

The Dean shook his head, grabbed the table to hoist himself up from it. He stumbled, albeit eloquently to the mirror on the corner. He had memorized this motion, practiced it. She remembered he could barely walk in a straight line when she left, after the beast ripped his eyes from his head. As he turned the mirror round she saw it was covered in a thick layer of tar.

 

“It's just a failsafe, we still don't know if he can see through it.”

 

“Not he, it.”

 

“Doesn't matter what you call  _ it _ . It could kill all of us. Full stop.”

 

“Then why are you keeping it here? We have the button just hand it over to the library. Make it someone's else problem cause I have a kingdom to run and  _ this  _ sure as shit ain't mine.”

 

“I'm not giving it to the library.”

 

“Oh grow a pair of tits. I get you cared about the kid, I did to. Even Alice. It destroyed Eliot, Penny, and Julia when they died. And you know what, I fixed it, no help from your sorry ass. I fixed a kingdom, I fixed a  _ world.  _ This is your mess, deal with it.”

 

He paused, “You've become stronger than I thought you would.”

 

It was uncomfortable, a sickening sweet offer from the popular girl in the school yard. The distraction so someone could deliver a fatal blow, it's just up to you to know when to duck. Margo always had.

 

“But I won't let the library have that power, and I won't let _it_ have access to the fountains. While it's trapped here, I have a spell. It's a box, a solid month of enchantments on it. You need to take this and the mirror back to Fillory, to the place of his transformation, and do the incantation. I will ask nothing further of you after that.” He said, pressing a small, smooth piece of wood into her palm. 

 

Hesitantly Margo took it, glancing again toward the mirror. Even just being in this office, this world, felt like a million steps backward. But Quentin, if that was really Quentin, it would seem there was no point to moving on at all.

 

“This doesn't mean I've forgiven you or Jane. Let alone trust you. I just want this problem gone, for everyone's sake.”

 

***

 

“So Quentins in here?”

 

“It’s what Fogg told me.”

 

“But why did he give it to us?”

 

“I don’t know Penny, I didn’t even plan on telling you about it anyways but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have an escape hatch when we try box this thing.”

 

“Fuck no, we saw what Quentin did to the beast after he turned. There wasn’t anything left of him.”

 

“Well someone has todo something, sooner the better.”

 

“Yeah, and it ain’t me.” He said spinning on his heels. Margo grabbed his arm.

 

“If you love Julia you’ll protect her. This thing, Quentin, it knew to go to Brakebills. You think it doesn’t remember Julia? That's a risk you're willing to take?”

 

Penny huffed with his eyes downcast.

 

“You can’t tell her, she won’t ever stop trying to save him. It took her so long to let him go.”

 

“You won’t tell Eliot either. We all have responsibilities, but he's high king, we can’t...He can't go back to how he was.”

 

“I know.. Well, should we at least see what were working with?”

 

Margo nodded solemnly as Penny started the casting. The tar melted slowly, then liquified, all falling to the floor.

 

Quentin looked exactly as he had the day he died. 

 

A sizable chunk was missing from his shoulder, his shirt still soaked in his blood. Hair clung to the sides of his face and he  _ laughed. _ He never stopped laughing and smiling, it looked unnatural on him, Margo had always remembered Quentin's face long and thin, much too weak to smile on it own. Electricity crackled around him, parts of the mirror glowed blue as he got close enough to touch it. He was completely blue, even his teeth aggressively so. She almost had not noticed it at first, the world in the mirror already looked so strange, he fit right in.

 

“Where is he? It looks like he here but, it all blue and grey.”

 

“And snowing, inside, that too.”

 

“Yeah, that too.”

 

Quentin smiled even brighter, snarking at Penny. He even glanced seductively at Margo, she felt that twinge of her former self for a moment, she thought it was pride.

 

“Quentin?” Penny said.

 

The thing just kept starting, pacing a little inside the little pocket world. But it wasn’t walking, he was floating off the floor. He put on a little show for them, kicking his legs a little as he went up. He was taunting them,  _ remember I used to walk on these things? Remember when you spread yours for me Margo? _

 

“Let’s go.”

 

“Margo we haven’t even read the spell yet.”

 

“I don’t care, I want that thing away from everyone. We don’t know how long it’ll stay trapped.”

 

“Better than fucking up the spell and setting it loose!”

 

“I want it away from Eliot.”

 

“Yeah and I want it away from Julia, were both involved Margo, so how about you give a shit about anyone else for once and let me help you.”

 

“I’m sorry, but all I’ve done is help. Who convinced the river watcher to fix your hands huh? Who fixed this entire kingdom while you were trying to get into Julias pants after her best friend fucking died!”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“You know it true!”

 

A near silent tap came from in front of them, niffin Quentin. He gave a little wave before he disappeared.

 

“Well shit.”


	2. A Silver Crown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin causes mischeif

“Shit Penny  **shit!”**

 

“Okay, how do we know it's not still in the mirror? He just sunk through the floor he didn't come through or anything. The mirror still looks like that other, dimension.. thing.”

 

“Yeah we're gonna take that chance, not like it's a malevolent magic demon who could fucking melt us!”

 

“I gotta get Julia out of here.”

 

“Well where would you take her? Earth? It knows how to get there to. For all we know it's just following  **us** ”

 

“Then why did it go to Foggs office and not here?”

 

“I don't know Penny! We know nothing!”

 

“Look I can stay and help you fight this thing but Julia won't.” Then he added, “And I know you won't let Eliot either.”

 

“Yeah but what happens when we stash them in some convent little pocket world and then Quentin.. the niffin.” She said catching herself, “finds them, and they can't protect themselves.”

 

“They can protect themselves. Eliot's a full on battle magician now.”

 

“Yeah and fighting the magic thing with more magic? Bad idea. It wants her if anything- at least with you we can outrun it.”

 

“It's probably after you too Margo. After what happened with you and him before he died--I mean how do we know he's not looking for Alice?”

 

“We don't. Worst comes to worst like that it won't be too hard to find an Alice to give him.”

 

“Am I the only one aware she's dead, like for years.”

 

“We could use a glamour idiot, or a golem or something. We just, need time to figure some shit out and learn the box spell in case it comes after us.”

 

“Okay, I'll take the Quentin mirror to Brakebills. If I put it in the clean room it might keep it from stepping through. Best case keep it from Fillory all together.”

 

“And the students?”

 

“It doesn't want, if it did they'd be dead.”

 

“Pen..”

 

“Look you get shit done, think of something to buy us time. I'll be back soon.”

 

He then blinked out of existence, Margo never told him, but his body always lingered a second longer than he thought it did, he made the most interesting faces. She was convinced Julia knew the trick too, was just sulking in her secret.

 

Margo strode along every hall of the castle, using her magic to make every mirror frozen over with a thick layer of frost. Some cracked but she accepted the casualties. Eliot could deal with the redecorating, he'd already embellished the shit out of this place. 

 

“Julia!” She said grabbing onto her sleeping form and shaking her awake “Come with me.”

 

“Where are we going?” She said with her signature Julia inflections. She'd also gone kinda native and refused to use contractions, that was fun. “I do not know of any business to discuss.” She rubbed her eyes before adding, “And it is the middle of the night.”

 

“Yeah, kinda’a emergency.”

 

“Are we in danger?”

 

“Off to the panic room you go.” She said shoving her towards it.

 

She shuffled over with a quick backwards glance, but she was too tired to question it. The panic room had a reason to exist after all, Julia had built it. One to many murderey Lorain fuckers. Harmless, kinda. Pain in the ass if your unprepared.

 

She froze another mirror on her way out. 

 

_ If I can't see you, you can't see me. _

 

And stormed into Elliot's room. To her suppose she found him kissing Fen, the random chick he'd been forced to marry.

 

“Okay I'll, we'll get to this later but right now, panic room.”

 

“What's going on?” Fen chirped. It made Margo grimace.

 

“Look there's something in the cas-”She was cut off by a blood curling scream.

 

She ran towards the source, and found Julia with her silver crown melted into her head.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i may have a crush on Dani, which inpsired nothing in this chapter. also thx for checking it out, i asked myself, whats better than hedge Q? NIFFIN Q


	3. Spoilers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fun times were Zelda is maybe a dick with goodish intentions and Julias fucked up. Whats new?

When Margo had convinced the river watcher to fix Penny's hands, she'd made a deal. She told no one what it was, no one asked, it solved their problem and nothing more. The deal had also gotten her a limited supply of healing water that she kept in a Dora the Explorer water bottle, because calf skins are shit and she wasn't about to let a drop go to waste. She poured a few tablespoons over Julia's head.

 

As the water dropped to the floor so did the glistening metal, or as much as the water could do. Swirling looping scars in the pattern of the crown danced along her forehead, and shimmered with glints of silver. Parts of her hair and drops on her hands too, they shone in the moonlight, Margo didn't want to ask if they still hurt.

 

“I saw Quentin in the mirror.”

 

“You saw what?” Eliot said.

 

“The mirrors where all frosted over, but I heard something scratching in there, and it was glowing. I thought it wanted me to let it out, so I tried using Sharvengers heat transfer to melt the frost, but when I touched the mirror..” she paused for a moment, unsure of what she had seen, “All I felt was burning. When I could open my eyes, I saw him laughing at me, covered in blue fire. Then Alice's crown started to melt.”

 

Julia still referred to her crown as Alice's, after all she had been the original owner.

 

Alice was stronger and Julia was smarter, together they made something of a team, or at least competition. Margo suspected they’d probably also hooked up at some point, but thats speculation. Anyhow when they were crowned kings and queens a choice had to be made. Julia saw herself exploring the world,  _ worlds _ they now had at their disposal. It was inspiring back then, how she planned for a future she couldn't know if she would live to see--It was probably just how she coped. As furious as Alice was with Quentin, she wanted her future to be with him, so she took the crown. She took the burden, then she died.

 

“Her crown is gone. What am I supposed to do without her crown?” She said looking up at Margo, she was trying to pry pieces of it off the floor.

 

“Look the crown meant nothing okay?”

 

It meant something, it meant a lot. Julia wore Alice’s crown every second she was awake, she even talked to it sometimes. 

 

“Look Jules your fine okay? We can make another crown.”  She was going into her thousand yard stare, slowly tucking her knees under her chin and rocking. Margo tried petting her new silver hair, it didn't do much.

 

“Bambi, what the fuck is going on.”

 

“Okay don’t be mad, but Fogg sent me a messge that niffin Quentin was trapped in a mirror at Brakebills. I needed to take it back to Fillory because there's a spell to get rid of it for good but it can **only** be cast where the transformation occurred.”

 

“And when where you going to tell me?”

 

“What do you think this is?”

 

“What the fuck Margo! There's a monster after all of us and you were going to tell no one?”

 

“Look Penny and I had it under control.”

 

“Under control! Is this,” He said point at Julia's burns, “what that looks like! And why did you tell  _ Penny _ of all people!”

 

“Look I don’t know okay! I just wanted him out of our lives! I fixed things I fixed everything and all of this was supposed to better and then..” She took a quick and shallow breath, “..everything went to shit and I just need it all to go away.”

 

Eliot was still fuming, but at least he could tell when yelling wasn’t going to do much good. “Okay where's Penny now?”

 

“Brakebills, the mirror, it's like a portal we think. When we couldn't see Quentin anymore we didn’t know if it was still trapped or not, so he went to stash it there until we could think of a plan. Turns out the fucker just needs a mirror in general.”

 

“Okay, then how about we fix that huh?”

 

Margo can hear the sounds of mirrors exploding and crashing to the floor, a few of the guards screamed like little girls, but weirder shits happened. Fen had taken over consoling Julia, she had always been better at that sort of thing.

 

“See, better.”

 

At that moment Penny blipped back into the room, shocked and horrified as soon as he’d seen Julias scars. After a quick string of concerned curses Fen gave him a rundown. Thank god for a chick literally from a kids book, she was damn good at quick exposition.

 

“Okay mirrors at Brakebills, but I don’t think that’s safe. Were going to the library right now.”

 

“I am not leaving this kingdom. Just because you didn’t want Quentin’s crown doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t give a shit about Fillory.”

 

“We agreed no one would take it, we decided together Margo. No time for this shit lets go!”

 

“Over my dead-”

 

In an instant, Penny had a hold on all of them and they were standing in a drab immense office not entirely unlike, no fucking  _ identical  _  to one they stood in what felt like a million years ago.

 

“Julia, Penny, Fen, Eliot, and Janet, welcome back to The Library.”

 

***

 

Janet and Zelda, as it turns out her name was, were sipping on tea. Well something resembling tea, it was like a kids toy, the cups were empty til you put them to your lips.  _ This way no books get hurt. _

 

“So Janet, enjoying the refreshments?”

 

“I’d enjoy them a lot more if you’d stop calling me Janet.”

 

“Your only Margo this time.”

 

“Okay enough with the omniscient bullcrap. You can call me by my name, I’m a High Queen.  High Queens get respect.”

 

“I know a lot, far more than you, but surely you know Queens with such attitudes tend to up up with their head in a basket.”

 

“My heads on my shoulders, that's more than I can say for most of your minions.” She said casting an icy glare at Penny, deep in the stacks with Julia.

 

“Do forgive him, he wants to protect you.”

 

“And I want to protect all of them, it’s what I’ve been doing. If you really knew anything, you’d know that.”

 

“I’ve read your book, you have nothing to prove to me.”

 

Margo tried to look as offended as possible, “You read my book!”. She’d kinda forgotten what the books were. As if she read her mind Zelda responded.

 

“We have the books of every person who's ever lived. Yours is quite a page turner, may I ask have you told them about the deal you made? I can never get the timing quite right.”

 

“Shut up okay? There was no deal, not one i’ll ever have to make my dues on. Let’s get to what I came for. Protection from the murder niffin who just tried to  Viserys Targaryen Julia.”

 

“You know I never did read those books.”

 

“Who did?”

 

“But yes. If you want to box the niffin, the spell Fogg gave you will more than do the trick.”

 

“Why did you just say, **If.”**

 

“Well I suspect Eliot and Julia will prove problematic, now that they have that book.”

 

“What book?”

 

“Nothing really, just a little old greek story about two lovers. Eurydice and Oedipus? Eliot’s just passing the time, but stumbled on the real version.”

 

“There's a real version?”

 

“Like most stories that got passed down, it’s all fluff really. But the pure version, she wasn’t plain old dead.”

 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

 

“Eliot and Julia have an guide on how to reverse a niffin transformation.”

 

“No this is insane!” She said glancing towards the group, now huddled over an ancient looking text that just happened to be sitting on the shelf. “You know this ends, it ends with them dead!”

 

She waved a hand, and they were all standing stark against the Netherlands chilled air. Eliot with book in hand, Margo’s jaw on the floor.

 

“No spoilers.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i jumped a lot but we have a penny so what the hell. also i will refer to margo as janet at every possible oppurtunity because im a book fiend and it will become so obvious in like 2 chapters. Im mean ive literally quoted book niffin alice like verbatum already. woopsie! also ill focus more on eliot after this i promise!


	4. It's an Earth Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot reads to Fen, plot devices are convient. That or Zeldas stirring up drama

While Margo made nice with the librarian, something that was usually his job, Eliot decided to browse the shelves.

 

Fen couldn’t read. He’d found that out pretty early on. She could write some, but not much beyond names. He’d started reading to her, it was at least something for them to have in common.

 

“That one looks pretty!”

 

It did, it looked ancient, most of the books did. Bound in fetal calfskin or written with quill pens. Eliot had to stifle a laugh when he read the cover.

 

“ _ Orpheus and Eurydice?” _

 

“You know it?”

 

“Yeah it’s an Earth story, most people there learn it when they’re about 12. I haven’t read it in forever.”

 

Fen looked up at him with those painful pleading eyes, Eliot needed a distraction, even if his Greek was for shit.

 

“There was a man named Orpheus and his wife Eurydice who lived where the sun met the hills. Orpheus was touched by Gods, Eurydice a cunning witch.”

 

“Wait I thought she was just a girl?” Penny chimed in.

 

“Me too, maybe this is another version?” Eliot went back to the story. Eurydice was a good witch, because she ached with agony. She wanted a child, but no child would come.”

 

“It is the wicked woman's curse. How did she so displease the Gods to make her barren?”

 

Another thing about Fen, she sounded rather biblical for a Fillorian peasant. Actually probably because she was a Filloran peasant.

 

“Something something, cried to the Gods, something, she would make a child herself.”

 

“Isn’t that just getting pregnant?”

 

“No make as in **make** , or build. Something close to it in english.”

 

“I can’t see this going wrong.”

 

“She wanted power, power like a God. Orpheus tried to give his power to her, but she was made very sick.”

 

“Like an organ transplant gone wrong.” Julia added.

 

“Yeah, so ..” Eliot said skimming through the pages. “She, in her weakened state, attempted to cast with magic that wasn't hers. The pain of the child she could never have wasn't enough for the spell, so it ate her up.”

 

A sudden somber mood fell over the party, the once welcomed tale of adventure soured.

 

“A niffin.” Julia said.

 

“Yeah a niffin.”

 

“But what about the end?” Fen asked.

 

“Basically he tries to save her, but loses her all over again.”

 

“But can you read it to me?”

 

“Really Fen?”

 

She reacted quickly, “No husband, it's foolish of me to want such trivial things as stories. I should go find something practical to do.”

 

“No its.. fine. I'll read the end.”

 

“He prayed to the Gods for his wife, and was sent to the underworld to save her soul. It's called a.. Okay Jules I need some help on that word.”

 

“Shade.” She said quickly, apparently she's been translating over his shoulder this entire time. “It was the part of her souls he needed to bring her back. It's the only thing that can make a niffin weep.”

 

“Wait are we actually reading what I think we're reading?” Penny said.

 

“He ventured into the underworld and was told he could have her shade, if he could fight his way back without doubt.”

 

“Yeah we know this part.”

 

“He failed, as her betrayal cut deep, the pain of losing her too much, and as he came to the surface he was alone, with no hope, as you can never go to Hades twice.”

 

“Holy shit.”

 

“Wait.” Eliot said, “so if this book is real, if just told us how to  _ save Quentin?” _

 

“It appears that way yes.” Julia said, she'd finally stopped biting her nails.

 

In disbelief, “Julia, Penny, we could bring him back.”

 

Then there was a sudden brush of air, and they were in a neat line facing a fountain with a monstrous bronze lotus at its center. The librarian in front of them looked intensely as Margo.

 

“No spoilers!” Before she vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry chapter lengths are hella inconsitant but meh, i try i swear


	5. A Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just listen to hayley kiyoko and listen to how i take a drunk alice comment way to serous (that ones kinda for book fans). basically fargo for the win

“Nope! No fucking way Eliot!”

 

“Bambi we have to tell you, this book!”

 

“I know exactly what it is and exactly how it ends, the book bitch told me!” Not her best work, but it would suffice.

 

Elliot's face fell the slightest bit. “So it's just a story?”

 

“No it's real but-”  _ oh shit. _

 

“Then we can save Quentin!”

 

“Eliot..”

 

“No Margo.” Julia added. “Know that we know we can bring him back, we can not banish him or whatever the fuck your plan was.” She was sounding more human by the second, it was terrifying. 

 

“ I know it sounds stupid but, gets rid of the niffin all the same.” Penny said

 

“Yeah, cause it'll kill all of us and burn earth, Fillory, or both to the ground.”

 

“Look the niffin isn't here right.” Eliot aid, his voice commanding everyone's attention. “So what's the harm in just trying to get his shade? If it doesn't work, we go with Margos plan.”

 

“But don't you have to go to the underworld?” Fen added quietly.

 

“Yeah, I'm not letting one of you off yourself for a plan based off of a fable.”

 

“We can find a way to get back.”

 

“If I knew how to a aim could probably just travel there.”

 

“Yeah and get lost in the upside down I think the fuck not. Look we tried to save everyone. As I recall Quentin died doing that and what happened! Alice and Quentin dead!”  

 

Soon everyone was screaming over each other, desperate and clawing at an answer no one knew. Penny started blipping a few inches from side to side, as he sometimes did when he was angry, and Julia reaching for a crown that was no longer there, as she did when she was scared. 

 

“Husband why won't everyone stop yelling?” Fen said tugging on his sleeve like a lost child.

 

“Because I love Margo but she's being an idiot.”

 

“Why don't you just tell her there's a way to get to the underworld?”

 

“I don't think suicide..” she looked puzzled, Eliot corrected himself, “Killing ourselves will help our case.”

 

“But the Questing Beast can take us there!”

 

“The what?”

 

“A gatekeeper, don't you know about the questing beasts?”

 

“Okay everyone shut up and listen to Fen.”

 

As it turns out, they were avoiding something right in front of them, a button. A portal given to Jane by a questing beast. Go figure. Or what Fen called the Questing beast, they were a Fillorian Legend, well as legendary as anything was there. Earth equivalent was your friend swearing she saw Justin Bieber in a Walmart. Not impossible, but very unlikley.

 

“One lives in the dark woods, we could catch her!”

 

Margo, still pissed at Fen about the kiss, even though she really didn't have a right to be, spat, “Yeah let's go back to the place were the niffin is and hope we catch a magic..”

 

“Lizard, it's a Lizard.”

 

“Lizard! instead of focusing on the plan we had!” She said pulling the niffin box out of her bag. “And why the fuck are we trying to get to the underworld again?”

 

Julia summed it up. Margo remembered a guy who used shades as a pickup line her first year. Knowing they were real made her feel slightly better about fucking him.

 

“Okay but point still stands. I am not sending either of you to Fillory.” She said looking at Julia and Eliot. “I know you were his best friends but right now your the target. Me or Penny can go.”

 

“Penny dies we have no way to travel.”

 

“And Quentins actually  **seen** you and Penny, its after you to.”

 

“He barely knows who I am!” Fen said, like a child excited to have heard of anything the grown ups were talking about.

 

“Fen, sweetie.” Margo said, “We are not sending you back to Fillory alone, it's not safe for you.”

 

Fen wrinkled up her face, and on a few seconds snatched a knife out of a concealed holster on her thigh, throwing it so it stuck into a stone wall. Then she simply shrugged.

 

“Knife makers daughter.”

 

Everyone was shocked, Julia kinda looked like she expected it somehow.

 

“Eliot, remind me not to fuck with your wife.” Penny said.

 

“Okay so even if we're accepting.. that. Someone with magic should still go. We have no idea what this "Questing Beast" requires.”

 

“I'll go.” Eliot said stepping forward. He looked very kingly.

 

“No me!” Julia said.

 

“Margo I told you I would help I'll go.”

 

Margo didn't like Fen, but she also knew those cocks would get themselves murdered in 10 seconds flat, and Eliot probably would end up seducing some humble farm boy along the way. Margo had the bag with everything in it, including the button.

 

“Bye!” She said grabbing onto Fens hand before they disappeared. It took the rest of them a few seconds to notice. They were in Fillory, and the rest of them had no idea where.

 

***

 

“You want me to wear, this?” Margo said holding up the rags.

 

“My Queen, we don't want to attract attention. There's only so much we can do with you, clothes help.”

 

Begrudgingly Margo grunted in agreement. She didn't look fillorian, she didn't have their calluses hands or broad shoulders. She was wearing a full length grown, they'd gotten enough looks from the creatures they passed on the way to this desolate little market. Margo could buy her dress back later.

 

“You wanna watch?”

 

Blushing, Fen turned around. Margo smirked before remembering she was supposed to hate her.

 

Soon both of them were done fastening boot buckles and corsets, the woman running the shop more than pleased with the trade she had made. Fen was busy pulling all the pins out of her hair. Margo glanced at the shopkeeper who nodded before she grabbed a blade. Margo hacked out a couple syllables in Russian and pulled a popper 17, a position that always proves troublesome with her nails, and handed Fen the blade.

 

“Should be stronger than steel, but only about a third of the weight.” She said shrugging.

 

Fen tossed it experimentally into the air.

 

“It's wonderful, I will never grow tiresome of your miracles my Queen.”

 

“Okay Fen, that's going to get old real quick. Just relax okay, call me Margo. You don't need to respect someone who basically kidnapped you.”

 

“I wanted to come.”

 

“Fen you could get hurt. Quentin, the niffin, he's  _ made _ of fire. He could burn you alive.”

 

Not even looking at her, still inspecting the blade, “You forget Fillory was my home before it was yours. A deal was made before I was born, that I would protect my home, or I would be nothing. Forgive me but I feel there are much better things for a woman to be.”

 

“Surely you miss some of it. Your home.”

 

“My home is Fillory. My village is where I would live out my days as a nothing.”

 

“I suppose. Can I ask you something?”

 

“Certain.”

 

“Did you love anyone before?”

 

They had started walking now, Fen seemed to know the way.

 

“I wouldn't call it love. When my father lost hope the king would come he tried giving me to one of our neighbors.”

 

“Giving you?”

 

“I know things are different on earth, but it's fine. He didn't end up doing it anyhow.”

 

“Your Father changed his mind?”

 

“No. Well yes. You came.”

 

“Well, good timing.”

 

They walked in silence for a long time before Fen found the courage to speak again.

 

“Were **you** in love, back on earth.”

 

“I was. I might still be.”

 

“Did you say goodbye, before you left.”

 

“In a way I did. But he didn't know what goodbye meant. I think he thought I was coming back.”

 

“Will you ever, return to him on earth?”

 

“I love him, so it's why I won't.”

 

“What did you do to him?”

 

“It's what I didn't do, what he couldn't. There was someone else for him. Honestly it was selfish for me to love him in the first place.”

 

“At least you can tell yourself that.”

 

“What's that supposed to mean?”

 

“I didn't mean to offend you, I simply mean you made a choice. You chose Fillory over him, to be a Queen. A girl who chooses is either foolish or wise, my grandfather said that, but I can never remember which. I think he may have just changed his mind from day to day.”

 

“So that's what you did, you made a choice. You chose to help your home, even if it meant marrying a stranger. Maybe never loving anyone.”

 

“Yes. Love had its charms, but power is better.”

 

“But you wanted both.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“I saw you, when you kissed Eliot. I never thought he would.”

 

“Women must chose, Men haven't a need.”

 

“How so?”

 

“Eliot knows more than any man I've met, it means he has far more to forget, people tend to do that with company. He doesn't want to love me, but he needs it, and I'm here.”

 

Margo started gritting her teeth because she was right. There was far more wrong with Eliot than her healing waters could ever hope to fix. That's why she made the deal with the river watcher. Margos bottle used to be a lot more full, it lolled absentmindedly in her bag, reminding her it was still there. Eliot needed love, and Fen slept beside him.

 

“It pains me that's gone. I thought he could learn to love me, that I wouldn't have to stick by my choice, completely at least.”

 

“But he kissed you didn't he?”

 

“Eliot knows battle magic, I've seen him cut and burn and bleed. The pain he uses doesn't belong to me. It belongs to who he loved.”

 

“Then why are you doing this!” Margo said, resenting how emotional she was becoming. “He was starting to love you, you could have Eliot love you. Why are you helping him get Quentin back then?”

 

“Because he's my king, and my friend.”

 

“And your husband.”

 

“And in his wife. I chose to make him happy. I tried, it worked, for awhile, but he'll never stop looking over my shoulder, praying for someone else to come through the door and save him.”

 

Margo hated Fen. It burned and brimmed and boiled over. For once she was at a loss, all she needed were the perfect words to say, with each moment she thought it preferable to freeze her in place with the flick of her wrist. Freeze Fen in this perfect awful moment.

 

“Margo, were here.”

 

In front of them stood a wood of black trees, blood red rubies stuck between cracks and divots of the trunk. Over a calm but storming sky the ground was eclipsed in a permanent night.

 

Maybe Fen could stick around a few hours longer.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so julia and marinas my main girl ship but what the fuck fargo can live. also building up this relationship gets to queliot swear to ember and umber


	6. Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fen and margo meet a gatekeeper

The thing about Fen was that the gravity of a situation never tending to hit her at the right time. It was like she was on the moon, bounding up off the ground. While Margo attempted stoic silence as they trekked through the Dark Wood, Fen continued to babble. Margo felt sick to her stomach.

 

“I thought you might teach me some things about your culture.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Your family, they were rich yes? That's why you went to school.”

 

“My parents were lawyers in LA.”

 

When Fen cocked her head Margo had to remind herself  **she** was the fish out of water here. It was a hard thing to get used to, and she barely talked about earth with anyone anymore. A little at first, but then she stopped feeling guilty about not missing it.

 

“My family had money. But my mother and father weren't around. They sent me away to a special school. It's called a boarding school in earth.”

 

“Why would they send you away?”

 

“Some women aren't meant for children, my mother wasn't. When I was eight my baby brother died of SIDS. Basically it's when a baby dies, all of a sudden for no reason.”

 

“Here we call that a curse. But I do not believe your mother is a wicked woman, so I question why.”

 

“Babies die, even then I knew I would never be enough. I couldn't be what my parents needed, figured better just to amputate.”

 

“So you were an orphan?”

 

“As orphan as you can be with a credit card. Maybe my mother was a wicked woman, or whatever you call it. I'm not sure, not like I'll ever care to learn.”

 

Fen looked at her worryingly, before her eyes darted to something beside Margos head. She quickly turned around and saw a flicker of blue fire.

 

“Fen run!”

 

They took off, constantly tripping over black roots.

 

“Where was the mirror? Did it escape?” Margo heaved.

 

“Come, jump!” Margo said motioning towards a still black river that stretched a few hundred feet ahead.

 

“No Fen I'll cast a shield!”

 

But Fen was strong, she pulled Margo into the water, it was dark and weightless. For a second she let herself hover there, it was like she was dead. The cold meant nothing, none of it did. The niffin couldn't get her here.

 

In that moment she had complete intentions to let herself drown in it, she hadn't know serenity in years, if she ever had. But something was pulling her down down down, and when she opened her eyes she realized she could breathe under the water.

 

“Fen!”

 

Fen was beside her, still gripping tight heat onto her hand. Margo watched as her hair floated around her head like an auburn crown.

 

Behind her was a dragon.

 

***

 

“So, humans, I haven't seen one of you in what feels like a thousand years.”

 

Margo did a clumsy curtsy before speaking. She was a manipulative cunt who took what she wanted from people, but the whole point of this expedition was to  _ not _ get burned alive, so she made an exception.

 

“Your.. majesty?”

 

The dragon huffed, it felt like a hairdryer straight to the face.

 

“We seek passage to the underworld. We were told you grant wishes if we found you.”

 

“No, I made trades.”

 

“I have a knife!”

 

“Shut up Fen!”

 

“Silence humans. I don't want your blades. I want the water.”

 

“The water?”

 

“In your bag? The last free drops of Chatwins Torrent?”

 

Apparently, even the dragon knew what a good lot of Fillory already did. Around the time the beast had died, Chateins torrent, a magic spring of healing waters, had frozen over, a curse no one could seem to break. Not that people were all that desperate, those who used to tended to get cursed or looped into deals, so it was generally avoided; But free water, much like the kind Margo kept safely hidden in, of all things, a Dora the explorer water bottle, was a precious commodity.

 

“I can't give you the water.”

 

“Do you what a deal or not?”

 

“Margo just give it we can get more!”

 

“You don't understand, I traded everything for it.”

 

“My deal expires in 10 seconds.”

 

“Margo for Eliot!”

 

“I- I.”

 

“5 seconds!”

 

Margo had made a deal with the riverwatcher, she was about to make another. The bottle gave a satisfying clink as she set it on the pseudo alter, which was put simply a worrying assortment of things, but the more her eyes adjusted she saw there were hundreds of piles just like it.

 

“Thanks for the deal.”

 

Suddenly they were buoyant against, shooting rapidly towards the surface. Margo clawed at nothing, she couldn't leave it behind, she can't go back to the woods, but the water around her was starting to run clear, and fill up her lungs.

 

Fen was a strong swimmer, she pulled Margo up towards the surface. When the water broke the air bit at their faces, and Penny stood before them.

 

“Took you long enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi its plagarism thanks lev! also i just wanted a fucking dragon let me live in peace!


	7. Glass Horse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a little glass horse dropped dead

The Dragon had given them a tiny veveletten bag. Or had apparently given them this, which Julia discovered after Margos post dragon meltdown while searching for her chapstick. It only calmed her down a little they'd actually gotten something in return.

 

“So whatever's in here should get us to the underworld?”

 

“It better, the DRAGON, not lizard Fen DRAGON, didn't do wishes. Bitch does  _ trades.” _

 

“God you didn't trade her the button did you?”

 

“No, she wanted the water from Chatwins Torrent. Honestly based on how she phrased it it might be all that's left of it.” Margo said in a daze.

 

“But that's fine! We can find healing spells! And we haven't had much need for the water after Penny's hands!”

 

“You don't understand I made a deal for that water!”

 

“You mean you never paid him back?”

 

“You think if I did the fucking Torrent would still be frozen over!”

 

“Wait did you?-”

 

“Unimportant Eliot. Just take the damn thing.”

 

Eliot wasn't going to put this down, not by a long shot, and Margo knew that. She also knew He was this close to Quentin, she would be on the back burner for awhile. She'd already done more than he knew.

 

“Well husband, unwrap it!”

 

It was only now Margo realized how much of an act Fen played, she wondered if it was only for company, or if she was like this every time she was around Eliot. Margo was no stranger to making herself appear dumber than she was, men are foolish, because a man never believes a woman is smarter than he is, easy to trick, but she had to admit Fen had been acting for a very long time. A scarily long time, how tired is she?

 

Wrapped in velvet, was a tiny glass horse.

 

“It might be a psychic, seems like something a Dragon would do.” Penny mumbled.

 

“It looks just like hers, do you think I can wake it up?” Julia said.

 

“I think you just touch it..” Eliot said with fingers hovering over the mane.

 

“Wait.” Margo said, “Who’s going?”

 

“We decided while you were gone. Julia and Eliot’ll go.”

 

“You decided without me?”

 

“Who snuck off to Fillory? With Fen in tow? This isn't your battle anymore Margo.”

 

Margo knew there was no point, no point in using magic, no point in ripping that painfully obvious omen from their hands.

 

“Just know I did everything I could to protect you, way more than any of you know. You can try get Quentin back, but know you could cost us our family.”

 

“I love you Bambi, but Quentins part of that family too.”

 

He kissed Fen on the cheek, and grabbed onto Julia's frail hand. Her crown saves sparkles in the dull ache of morning. The horse reared to life in Eliots palm before dropping dead, and at that moment they did too.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shortie but loose ends, next chapters eliot and julia in hades!


	8. 3 Star Hotel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the underworld looks like an airport holiday inn

Eliot wasn’t sure what he expected, he’d read, well skimmed the Percy Jackson trilogy— _ shit was it a trilogy? _ — and well, this wasn’t that.

 

They were in a rather fancy looking elevator with the old fashioned dial, a metal arrow that instead of pointing to certain floor, only pointed straight down. 

 

“There was one just like this,” Julia said, “When I took my Brakebills exam.”

 

“Q wasn’t with you right?”

 

He felt guilty he had to ask, but that moment was so irrelevant. It became irrelevant so fast. Q was there, didn’t matter how.

 

“No, I left him and James to go to the library. Had this paper to write on a sex cult turned silverware distributor.”

 

“Jesus.”

 

“Makes any difference I think I got an A- “

 

“Julia? And A-?”

 

“I think March wrote it, you know in case I didn’t get in.. and used Wikipedia.”

 

“Good old March. I just chased after a chicken and ended up falling head first onto the Brakebills lawn.”

 

The elevator kept heading down, it felt like there was a pressure coming down on every inch of them. They were heading deeper and deeper into the earth. Soon the elevator lit up and with a satisfying ding popped open. They stepped outside and were in a 3 star hotel lobby. Uncomfortable furniture took up more space than it needed and what Julia later called “groovy” wallpaper covered the surfaces.

 

“Place your bets, heaven or hell?”

 

Julia had gone through a lot, she wasn't the same person she used to be. She wore all black and didn’t brush her hair. Sometimes she forgot to eat and her demeanor even made Margo look peachy. But sometimes she was old Julia.

 

“Well let’s see if we prove the Christians wrong.” She smirked.

 

***

 

Okay, they were in purgatory. Or something like purgatory, more of a waystation. Turns out they couldn’t trust that fable 100%, and apparently it evolved as people did. Something about shifting expectations. Eliot was elected to talk to the bellhop.

 

“Look I need to find someone. Some.. thing? Quentin Coldwater, I need to see Quentin Coldwater.”

 

“One moment, you are?”

 

“Eliot Waugh.”

 

“Hand on the desk please?”

 

It glowed, Eliot felt like his brains were being sucked out through his nose.

 

“Okay, I think this should take you where you need to go!” Beaming the bellhop offered him a ticket. 

 

Eliot gave a half smile. It was clearly someone's first day, but he thought it might look smug to ask if he could double check.

 

“Just walk through those doors!”

 

“Can my friend come? Julia Wicker?”

 

“For your first reunion we prefer it happen in private. People can get, unruly. Better thing to go through alone.”

 

“She loved him too. Why can't she come?”

 

“Look it's just policy. I really don't want to upset my boss.” He leaned in close and whispered, “It's my first week on the job.”

 

_ Yeah no shit _

 

“Okay fine I'll figure it out. How do I get back? And can he come with me?”

 

“You have all the time in the world Eliot, so does he. There's no reason to leave.. and just be aware he might not want to.”

 

Eliot didn't feel like arguing. Well he felt exactly like arguing, and a little bit like procrastinating, but God knew how long this magic would last. He needed to use his head for once. He walked over to Julia.

 

“Fuck this place is creeping me out.”

 

“I know J, look they want this to go one at a time. They gave me this ticket, says it’ll take me to him. Are you okay waiting here?”

 

Julia quickly looked at the floor, tentatively stroking her matted hair. “Yeah I will be fine. Just, don’t fuck it up okay?”

 

“I can’t. You have full permission to for real kill me if I do.”

 

“Don’t think I won’t.”

 

Two contractions in one sentence, real improvements. Guess death suits her.

 

“I have faith you will.” He said pressing a kiss onto her forehead. “Now don’t die.” He joked. She snuggled up to him a second before pushing him towards the door. It was white and hollow, but it was where all the people with tickets were stepping through.

 

When he reached the other side he was in his old room back in indiana, he shuddered just looking at it, and Quentin was pressing a kiss onto his cheek.

 

“What took you so long?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i need to chill with my refrences to everything!!! or you know study for my finals!!!


	9. Something about shades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eliot confronts a dream and nightmare

“What the fuck?” Eliot drawled. The room was eating him alive.

 

It was near bare,  he liked to call it minimalistic back in the day, instead of just a compromise between clean and poor.

 

“You okay El?” Q laughed. “You look like you've just seen a ghost.” He then added, “well, the spooky kind.”

 

“Yeah, uh. Where did you think I was?”

 

“Visiting Margo? Or trying to at least. Did you get to her?”

 

“No.. why are we here?”

 

“Eliot what's wrong with you?”

 

“Look Q you need to come with me now. Julia's waiting for us.”

 

“Holy shit she died? How old was she?”

 

“No Q, you don't understand. This weird, purgatory shit isn't real. Or for you. We found a way to fix it and turn you human again.When you became a niffin-”

 

“Eliot, I'm not a niffin.”

 

“Look Q I get you might be confused.”

 

“No Im not. The beast killed both of us. No one became a niffin. The only one to live was Julia.”

 

“No Quentin, you and Alice. You were the ones to die.”

 

Something in Quentins face shifted. Understanding, perhaps even a bit of playfulness.

 

“Your playing pretend again aren't you?”

 

“What I'm-”

 

Quentin grabbed his arms and looked up at him. “It's okay if you want to play pretend. It's just been awhile. We can go see Julia.”

 

Eliot felt himself drifting into a daze. Maybe he was playing pretend. Maybe he really was dead, and all of this was a game.

 

“So Eliot, tell me about Julia.”

 

“But you know her.”

 

Like speaking to a child he said, “No, tell me what  _ you _ think is happening with Julia. Your here to rescue me is that right?”

 

“She missed you a lot. She hasn't been the same, then we saw you in the mirror and there was hope.”

 

“A mirror?”

 

“Yeah niffin you starting appearing in the mirrors. You could get through,  a little sometimes. Julia was wearing a crown and touched you, it melted right into her head. That's why she had the scars.”

 

Quentin had grown a little more wary now. Eliot was kinda a terrible storyteller. Those with all those convoluted, fanciful metaphors for pain belonged to the good ones. Eliot was convinced it was because they hadn't had enough of the real thing.  Eliot's were blunt, unimaginative. Not so thinly veiled metaphors. Not like this.

 

“Okay. So you said Alice died. Why are you “rescuing” her not me?”

 

“Alice is for real dead. That much is true, your not. We found this book in the library..”

 

“I know you go there a lot now.”

 

“What? No but Fen found this book, remember Orpheus and Eurydice?”

 

“Enough, he has to rescue the girl from-from the underworld and uh can't look back at her but does at the last second. Then she's gone forever.”

 

Quentin always stuttered when he told stories

 

“Well I found the real version. She was a niffin. She tried to play God and niffined out, but part of her soul went to the underworld. Her shade.”

 

Quentin's face grew drawn out and thin.

 

“Eliot you know better than to mess with that kind of magic.”

 

“Were not messing with it! Well kind of..”

 

“Look El, I know it helps you sometimes to play pretend, I thought we were past it. But no way in hell am I letting you mess with shades  _ again.” _

 

“Again?”

 

“Give it up Eliot! I love you, nothing will ever change that but your not going to pretend I didn't find you near bled out with your fucking shade in your hand!”

 

That was a loaded sentence. Best to address in chronological order.

 

“You love me?”

 

“Why wouldn't I? We've been together for years El.”

 

“Okay seriously what the fuck.”

 

Quentin went up to kiss him. “Remember the rules of playing pretend. No one gets hurt. I can tell your hurting, or your confused. So let's stop pretending and just sit awhile okay?”

 

_ Yeah, none of this is right. _ This was only exacerbated when another Eliot walked through the door.

 

“Okay, this is a little kinky.. even for me.”

 

***

 

“Okay so alternate timeline, that's the working theory.” Eliot said. Well, the other Eliot. He was cuddled up close to Quentin, he was practically in his lap. So literally what the fuck.

 

“I mean that bellhop dude was kinda shit at his job, wouldn't surprise me.”

 

“Okay,” Quentin said, “But you said your Quentins a niffin, but part of him, the part you need to fix him, is still here in the underworld.”

 

“Yeah, Fen got a book from the library, told us the basics. Then while Margo and Fen made a deal with a dragon Julia and I worked out the meta-math.”’

 

“That was  a loaded statement. For now I’m going to ignore dragon but Fen?”

 

“My wife, your wife too I guess.”

 

“I never had a wife. Also is this the timeline where I'm somehow straight?”

 

“Then how did you get the leo blade?”

 

“You needed to be a master to hold it, much easier to steal what the kinfe-maker dude couldn't even touch, And I was. You aren’t?”

 

“I wasn’t then. Q’s death helped. I chose battle magic, can’t really even be a master at it anyway. How did you become a master that fast?”

 

Quentin looked into his eyes. “You don’t have to tell it if you don’t want to.”

 

“I’ll give you the cliffs notes but I killed someone. Magic comes from pain, learned pretty quick after.”

 

“Mike? Me too.”

 

“Who the fuck is Mike? No, how do you not know?”

 

“Back in Indiana? I mean technically..”

 

“Margo. I.. killed Margo.”

 

“How! When?”

 

_ Guess that explains the room, exactly how I would chose to punish myself. _

 

“Second year. In my timeline, I guess Jane kept you from knowing about it, but one of my brothers had a little girl. Her name was Jenny. I tried, going to visit. I took Margo with me. I’d given up on my family, but Jason’s wife snuck me a picture if her and well.. I felt I needed to be a part of  _ her _ life. One way or another. Even if that meant playing a part.”

 

“So Margo was your ‘girlfriend’. I almost pulled that one myself.” Eliot joked before he remembered, yeah he probably shouldn't..

 

“Yeah.. they were relieved, at first. Well after Dad drunk off his ass called her a towel head.”

 

“Dear old Dad.”

 

“But it all got darker, Dad wanted me to prove I was even dating her or some shit before they’d even let me see the baby. It was like he wanted me to have sex in front of him. I had enough, but when I tried to see Jenny I got dragged out of the house, afraid she might catch my ‘disease’, Margo tried calming me down, but I just lost it.”

 

“Eliot babe, I think he gets it.”

 

“No Q it’s fine...I uh, lost control of the ticks.”

 

“Shit.”

 

When Eliot was younger, his telekinesis more closely resembled tourettes than a superpower. He got into the habit of calling them his ticks. Only Margo ever knew the nickname. He was surprised at himself he would let Q know there was ever a time he was out of control.

 

Eliot, this version of him, had in all likelihood let Margos brains get bashed out by a stapler and couldn't stop it.

 

“Look I don’t know the whole story but, Q said something bout your shade?”

 

Quentin spoke for him, “Your shade, you can live without it. You just don’t really feel. No pain or guilt, but no love either. After what happened to Margo I found him and made him put it back in. Some of the biggest magic I’d ever done just to force him. When he had it, severed and beating in his hand,” Q seemed to drift off to a different place, “He was cutting himself for fun, drawing pictures in blood on the floor.”

 

“Then you died.”

 

“We were together before. Almost a year once we got to Fillory. Now we just try to process it all. Sometimes we would pretend. Eliot was going to try see Margo today.”

 

“Why can’t you see her?”

 

“Eliot’s flagged in her file, Coupable in her death.”

 

“This is a lot to take in guys.”

 

“Yeah, just the idea that there's another timeline when you guys are alive. It’s kinda fucking me up.”

 

“But safe to say I don’t belong here. I need to find  _ my _ Quentin.”

 

“No your right.” Eliot said wiping away a tear. “We can help.”

 

Quentin nodded in confirmation. “Let's go get ourselves killed!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cause i needed MORE canon divergence. JuliaxAlice next!


	10. Wibbly Wobbly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When your Alice, dying sucks

While Eliot was being looped into someone else's shitty past, Julia was left to confront her own.

 

“Julia!” Alice exclaimed, running toward her and scooping her up in her arms. She was clad in a tight black party dress. It reminded Julia of a time Margo attempted a slutty makeover.

 

“Alice?”

 

“In the flesh! Well close, that one kinda never gets old. Your head, what happened?”

 

“Uh, Quentin.”

 

“The scars look new.. wait how long has it been?”

 

“Like two years. I can never tell with Fillory time.”

 

“Two years.” Alice stuttered in disbelief. “So Quentin, he killed the beast?”

 

“Yeah, he did.”

 

“That's good. I'm happy it's over but, God Julia the fuck did you do?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“If you killed yourself I swear to God I will find a way to murder you all over again.”

 

“Wait why would you think that?”

 

“Cause you're 23 and dead.”

 

“24”

 

“Not the point J.”

 

“No I did not. Succeed anyway..”

 

“What the  **fuck** Julia.”

 

“That was like a year ago for me and I'm better okay? And I'm not dead.”

 

Alice was doing the thing were she would hum between her words, her lips tightly sealed.“Okay denial, get that but-”

 

“No I know it sounds batshit but..dragons were involved. We came to rescue Qs shade. His, niffin, is chasing after us and if we can get it we can turn him human again.”

 

This was the first time Alice's voice began to grow wary.

 

“He's here?”

 

“We think so.”

 

“He's not.”

 

“Ally please you can help us.”

 

“You mean he never wanted to see me? I thought he burned up, every part of him!”

 

“Calm down Alice!”

 

“And.. Charlie.”

 

“Oh God I should not have said anything.”

 

“And why are you talking like that? just, I need a second.”

 

She stumbled off to the side for a second, many actually. It occured to Julia when affronted with eternity perhaps Alice had gotten used to taking longer to do everything, but Julia didn’t have that luxury.

 

“Ally, babe, we do not know anything for certain. The shades, they might be trapped too.” and then added, “We can save Quentin and Charlie, together.”

 

Alice finally looked up, “You know when Charlie died I was like 14. It’s stupid but I told myself that someday I would get to see him again. Like, in heaven or some shit. Then when I found out he was a niffin, when fucking Margo told me--fuck why did she get to live?--that he got himself killed over some  _ stupid _ girl? And once I got here, that he was really gone? What if he just didn’t want to see me!”

 

“All-”

 

“Don’t you fucking dare call me Ally again. Charlie calls me Ally not you!”

 

“Okay,  _ Alice _ . I’m sure Charlie and Quentin are not avoiding you. We just need to find them! Huh? Let’s go on an adventure.”

 

“Cause it ended so well the first go round.” She glared. All of this, it just made Julia think, this is exactly the Alice she left. Time was nothing to her here, without Charlie and Q she had no one. Any maturity Julia had was lost to her.

 

“Okay, no room for snark here. Eliot will be back in a second and-”

 

“Quentin!”

Suddenly Alice was leaping into Quentins and Eliot’s arms, Julia followed soon after. Eliot pushed them away from each other pretty quickly. 

 

“Not our Q, prepare for some wibbly wobbly, timey wimey bullshit. And oh, hi Alice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the amount of self control it took for julia to call Alice Ally and not Vix is ASTOUNDING


	11. May I Speak to Your Manager?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nit picking season 1/2 details and alices pixie dreamgirl

So, Eliot was left to fill in the blanks for J and Alice. He was quite impressed with how he managed, it made him miss Fen a little.

 

Other Eliot wouldn’t go with them. Let’s face it two identical people were probably going to draw some attention, and he wasn’t really in the condition to help anyway. Well Quentin had convinced him to do  _ something _ , which was why after prying a hysterical and mysteriously slutty looking Alice off him, Q camped out by the desks. A fun thing about Q, he was shit at card tricks, but spectacular at cheating.

 

Now the Eliot double was left to make the women he taught at his soul cycle class--seriously what the  _ fuck _ is with these timelines-- proud: he  employed the most feared phrase in the multiverse, “Can I speak to your manager?”.

 

So yeah, Eliot had put up with enough bitchy customer service bullshit between that and his various odd jobs (not that he wasn’t the most fabiolus gas station attendant) and he was already pretty pissed at the administration.

 

“Whos your superior huh? Cause you are keeping me from my Bambi and you sure as shit don’t want to mess with me! What are you like 10?”

 

“Sir, I’m immortal.”

 

“Don’t be smart with me!”

 

It was an odd, (maybe?) cathartic thing to witness.  Then Quentin, the sneaky bastard, could tranfigure objects. Make them move from one place to another without really thinking about it, a skill that got him into Brakebills, and yeah they should have taken advantage of more often. Anyway with the distraction he grabbed a few tickets and a red, leather-bound leger.

 

As Eliot saw himself get dragged off by underworld security, who by some cosmic halirity were an army of fucking  _ leprechauns  _ who hopped on him like the tiny dinosaurs in Jurassic Park _ , _ the group shuffled off into a waiting room.

 

“Convincing performance Eliot.” Alice snarled at him.

 

Eliot had the same realization Julia had, this was exactly the Alice he left, and he left Alice supremely pissed at him.

 

_ Thank God we didn’t send Margo, Alice would have  _ murdered  _ her. _

 

“Okay I know we left on bad terms, but lets forget about the bullshit for now huh? You want Charlie?”

 

She huffed and crossed her arms like a child.

 

“Thought so.”

 

Julia was now softly rubbing her arm, Alice still cagey and twitchy. Quentin grabbed the front of the book in his hand, and flipped through it all at once, tongue in his teeth.

 

“Okay ever shade listed goes to some place called E.”

 

“You can't possibly have read that.”

 

“First thing you learn in the order, speed reading.”

 

“Wait you are a librarian?” Julia said.

 

“ Junior librarian. Kinda bullshit title but has its perks, I don’t think will help us much though. I mostly shelve things.”

 

“But why make a deal with them at all?”

 

“I wanted too, what's a few thousand, million years out of eternity right? In exchange for all that?”

 

It hadn’t really hit Eliot that Quentin was in front of him, the same face, the same ticks. A Quentin that was in love with Eliot. Was he so blind he didn't even know Quentin liked guys? Sure they’d hooked up but Margo was there, and they were all so fucked up that none of em could put together a timeline if they tried. But Q, it was like a drug seeing him, because of course Q traded eternity for books. For stories. Of course he did.

 

“Anyways, “Quentin said, “Did your book say anything about it?”

 

“It was pretty vague” Eliot said, “A lot of the stuff changed as the underworld did, shifting expectations and all that. But is it insane to say Elysium?”

 

There was a pause.

 

“Oh fuck me.” Alice whined.

 

“What Alice?”

 

“I know where we need to go.”

 

***

 

So there were so questions that had been brought up in the past 20 minutes, Julia was developing a migraine. When one was answered, a fuck ton more spring up in its place.

 

They were in Alice's ‘house’, it was disturbingly pastel and clean. It reminded Julia of the times she would sleep over in Alice's dorm at Brakebills, but to the extreme. There was nothing here to even it out. Well, one influence.

 

“This is Grace, she's uh, my girlfriend.”

 

Grace looked to be 19, 20 if we’re pushing it. She was fresh faced and properly british, and her clothing gave the vibe of a not so recently reformed punk. Grace was also a pixie.

 

“Hi I’m Grace!” She chirped. “Pleasure to meet you!”

 

“Guess that explains her clothes.” Eliot whispered into Julia's ear, she elbowed him in the ribs.

 

Warily Julia shook her hand, her wings were fluttering rapidly like a hummingbird, any higher and she was pretty sure she could see up her skirt.

 

Grace and Alice went off the the side, being overly touchy and smiley. Plum stroked Alice's face a lot.

 

“I think your the only one to not seem surprised Q.”

 

_ Shit, even talking to him. No, not him. He's not Quentin. _

 

“Well you seem to be taking it pretty well Jules.”

 

Julia cocked her head.

 

“Oh, in my time you two would um, well you would sorta..”

 

“Fuck buddies?” Eliot supplied.

 

“I mean yeah.” Quentin exhaled.

 

“Noted.” Eliot said simply. “Not sure if I still owe Margo that 20 bucks.”

 

“Wait you were betting if we were gonna hook up?”

 

“Julia babe, you know everyone was.”

 

Julia rolled her eyes like she knew it wasn't true. She liked Penny  _ now _ , liked him a lot. They got through shit, and she'd be lying if she said she was ever bored. But seeing Alice here, she could tell her and Eliot had a very specific thing in common right now.

 

“Okay so what is our game plan Eliot? Are we going to really ask Hades for permission?”

 

“Look I know how stupid it is to confront actual death..” he grimaced for a second, as people sometime did when they realized the lunacy of their statements, and continued. “But I think it's important we do this by the books. Hades could just take him away once we got back.”

 

Julia nodded quickly.

 

“I know what your thinking.”

 

“Do you El?”

 

“We can't take her J. I know she was your best friend but, there's nothing of her left. Quentin still has a body, she's a nothing. Just.. at least we know she's not gone.”

 

“But what good is that if we can't see her!”

 

“Okay guys.” Quentin clone interrupted. _Fuck that was still so weird._ “You'll see her yourself soon enough. And your not bringing other me back to life. What your doing is allowing him to die. A few years down here in eternity? You 'life' before becomes pretty damn irrelevant. It's the choices you make down here that matter. And to be honest...I don't think you've considered he might not want to come back with you.”

 

***

 

_ Shit. _

 

It wasn't that Eliot hadn't  thought about an afterlife. The possibility of it.

 

No her never been convicted of all the raining hellfire or blowjobs from angels while you pet your childhood dog, but Eliot convinced himself he believed in something. On days when he wasn't feeling particularly bitter or pragmatic he imagined Quentin and himself there. But being affronted with eternity like this, and the idea that Quentin still chose Eliot. Quentin _chose_ Eliot, even if out only other comparison was Alice and her very fucking literal manic pixie dream girl. Fuck he could get Quentin back, and have him forever? But did he want to, would he still want him?

 

“No your right.” Julia said. “We can't save her.”

 

Before he could get another word in, Alice came bounding over, though she grimaced as soon as Eliot got ito her line of sight.

 

“Grace works reception at the terminal. The cross roads of you will.”

 

“I sure do! Employee of the month November 1879! I know how to get to Elysium, if you lot got the tickets I can send you on your way! Anything for my Vix!”

 

_ Really, she gave Vix to this girl? Everyone knew that was Quentin's name for her. _

 

Eliot could see guilt dancing across Alice's face as Grace said it. I wouldn't suprise him if Grace didn't know about Q at all.

 

“Just maybe, don't mention it was me that sent you there.”

 

“I see no reason to delay.” Julia said.

 

Grace lead them to a subway platform. Eliot couldn't stop thinking.

 

_ He might not want to come back, and he might never forgive you for it. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry people but finals threw me for a FUCKING LOOP. also tried writing more orginal stuff, given thats what i tend to do, just tried this out for fun! also tbh shouuld have re watched this episode but oh well


	12. Hades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Qs a klepto, manages to steal Els heart.

Grace had snuck them onto a subway platform with the tickets Q stole..and Q kept stealing shit. El had forgotten Quentin was also a serious klepto.

 

He’d swiped sunglasses and jewelry and umbrellas, put together they made disguises with various degrees of believability, to be honest they were more likely to get caught for stealing than for anyone to point out they plain old didn’t belong there. Quentin was currently rocking a scarf he stole off a lady's handbag, it made him look like he’d raided Penny's closet just for shits and giggles.

“Quentin I think you can lay off love.” Grace said. “You look positively stupid.”

 

“This is my magic heist! I can do whatever I want!”

 

_ Guess you lose impulse control when you don't have consequences, not that he ever did _ ..

 

Quentin glaced at Eliot expecting him to nuzzle up to him or come to his defence, before he realized he left his Eliot at home.

 

“Just don’t do something stupid, not that I trust much anyone from your century not to, much less fucking Americans.”

 

“Grace your not coming?” Alice said.

 

“Far as I go Vix.” Alice winced again. “I’ll just arouse suspicion, the wings are tricky to hide, and I’m currently supposed to be on probation.”

 

“No yeah, stupid of me. We don't want to wait any longer for each other right?”

 

“Of course. No on your way! And don't end up with a bounty on your head! Tickets should take you back!”

 

“Bye..”

 

“Bye!”

 

Alice seemed to be much more hurt.

 

They stepped off a subway platform, and found themselves in a train. Well all except Eliot, who was in an office with Hades.

 

***

 

“Eliot, pleasure.”

 

The man in front of him was dressed in a 3 price suit that looked impossibly expensive, the kind he would steal when he was an undergrad. Okay maybe Q wasn't the only klepto in the mix, but he stole for a purpose!, Eliot weakly defended himself. The man smirked like he'd heard it.

 

“Uh, Hades?.”

 

“No shit. Train takes you where you need to go.”

 

“But, the others..”

 

“Got where they needed to go.”

 

“Will I be able to find them?”

 

“If they want to be found.”

 

Other than act outraged in front of the God of death, Eliot held his tongue, some.

 

“Does Quentin,  **my** Quentin want to be found?”

 

“That's up to you.”

 

“How?”

 

“Only  _ part _ of his soul is here. His heart, his body. You must speak for these.”

 

“So, like a lawyer? Convincing you to tell me where he is?”

 

Dramatically he waved his hand,  _ then get on with it. _

 

“When I met Q-er-Quentin he was really just a kid. He was really lonely, Fillory was everything to him.”

 

Hades nodded, disappointed. He knew this, Gods have forever, but hate wasting time.

 

“Shit, okay. Margo was the only person I ever had. It took more than I ever imagined to trust her, to, not abandon or hurt me.” Eliot felt like a kid again, he hated it. “But Q was, he was like a puppy he just, believed in all of it. Fillory, he believed in Fillory! He, believed there was more to me.. In me.”

 

“It's a rare thing.”

 

“I don't think I ever realized how much needed someone, to want me? Q, he wanted you there, he'd give you everything. He gave himself.

It took me a really long time to start forgiving him. I still don't think I'm quite there yet.”

 

“Your still in love with him. You've barley forgiven Alice.”

 

“I never thought I needed a family. Then I had one. I don't think I could face eternity without it.”

 

“But Quentin, what does he want.”

 

“I can't know for sure.”

 

“Wrong answer.”

 

“But I just don't want to lie-”

 

“You really thought the reason Oedipus lost her was because he turned around don't you.”

 

“What?”

 

“He doubted she would want to come back. He could see her shade plain as day, I would never make a deal that stupid.”

 

“So I just have to be sure, that he would want to come back.”

 

“Tell me why you're sure.”

 

“Julia should..”

 

“She isn't his soulmate.”

 

“Soulmate? I-”

 

“Be selfish, be honest. Just tell me.” He said slamming a fist on the table before politely crossing his arms once more.

 

“Me, Julia. We were talking, she was spectacularly drunk. One of those days she thought Alice was still there, playing hide and seek with her in the castle. She told me about how she felt so selfish taking magic. She didn’t deserve miracles. She’d had a nice enough life, she didn’t need them. Then she found out what they were for. She did a rainbow spell fro Alice when she was crying, and it made her laugh. She did that spell over and over until they fell asleep, pillowcases stained through in color.

 

I told myself it was selfish to love him, he was too much. He was so, so fucking perfect. Like those damn scars on his wrist I wanted to kiss every one of them and say it would be okay and hide him away from the world because he was so, **pure**. I had to smash apart the person I was meant to be to be the person I  _ wanted _ to be. He didn’t need to. Everything he’d been told was wrong with him, his relentless pursuit of fantasy made him perfect. I will  _ never _ deserve him, but he chose me down here.” Eliot realized he was crying. “ I can do miracles for him, I’d do a million. I’d invent a million and he'd laugh. That's his heart, his body, that's burning. It will burn forever unless I give it a chance to die, and he can choose. He could chose me, and I’ll love him every time.”

 

The man tossed a few coins on the desk, old style gold doubloons. 

 

“Batteries, use the spell you made. You aren’t perfect Eliot, you aren’t even nice, but I like watching. Make your story a good one.”

 

It felt like a warning, a premonition. Eliot came too in and elevator, Julia, and Quentin beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again klepto Q is my headcanon let me live! So yeah sad Eliot mononlouge cause why the fuck not? Stay tuned for lots of sapphic bullshit between J and Alice and my lesbian day in a life with margo and fen because I have zero self control


	13. Ice Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> get ready for the backstory janet got robbed of in the musical episode once again! Fen is the only addition I approve of lol. Tbh I think she was 100 there to avoid queliot happening+th obvious we need another girl. Yeah ya do, for Margo. So life in a day, unlikley canidates edition. this will be fun! hope people remeber what the fuck nyads are, and that i got the name right

While Eliot dealt with his past, Margo confronted her own. And her future, far more of it than she would have liked.

 

The underworld runs slow, after all they have eternity. Netherlands has no need for time, so it operated however the fuck it wants. 3 days had passed. They thanked Gods the water in the fountains was more of a formality and they could actually drink it, even if it tasted like a public fountain. The bodies of Julia and Elliot had not yet begun to rot.

 

“Margo, we need to go back.” Penny said out of the blue.

 

“And walk right into the Niffins trap?”

 

“It could be terrorizing Fillory.”

 

“For all we know, it could have been 5 seconds over there. Likely actually. Then we'd just be going in premature and unarmed.”

 

“I have a knife.”

 

Out of boredom or pity, Margo wouldn't even  _ consider _ endearment, she'd made Fen a pretty badass knife. It could catch fire or turn to ice, weighed nothing until Fen wanted it too.

 

“Your pretty.” Margo said. She’d been used to fasting, but it had been three fucking days on a Queen's stomach. “But sometimes so stupid.”

 

Fen didn't seem to mind. She just let Margo pet her hair.

 

“But for real Margs. We're effectively banned from the library, we can't go through a fountain to any world with a fucking  _ mirror _ . We’ll die without food.”

 

“Can I propose a horrible idea.”

 

“I don't see  _ any _ idea being horrible.”

 

“Those renegade Nietherland fucks have to survive somehow.”

 

“Nevermind. I completely retract my previous statement. There are  _ horrible  _ ideas.”

 

***

 

It then took Penny another day to give up on being smart. Took Fen about negative two minutes. In the end she settled for guarding Julia and Eliot, mercenaries be damned, she had a  _ knife. _ Which honestly Margo trusted with more than she thought was reasonable, but what the hell. Feminism.. maybe.

 

Penny had been pinging around. His aim was for shit here, so he could only get far as he could see. They did develop a neat trick though. Apparently he could travel into the air. He was fine.. as long he traveled somewhere else before he hit the ground. After a few test runs of shitty drone Penny, they found what they were looking for.

 

“I found their camp, or one of them. I hovered a few times. They keep food in a big tent.”

 

“So, communism? Means they’ll be open to sharing, makes me feel less bad.”

 

“But what about the battle magic? Its bound to be warded up the ass.”

 

“Did I ever tell you about the time I robbed a bank in high school?”

 

“You what?”

 

“Shut up and listen. The adults are gonna start talking now.” Cause yeah, Margo robbed a bank in high school. 

 

“I’d been ‘dating’ his guy who was more than willing to trade a blowjob for a cryo spell.” Penny wrinkled his nose, and Margo shot him a dirty look. “He’d proposed a ‘fun’ date idea. Bank robbing. I knew when to back off, even at 17, and his ass got hauled off to jail. I  learned from the experience though. Mostly everything he did wrong, which was.. a lot. A man will never believe a woman is smarter than he is, which means every man is stuck playing the fool.” Penny didn’t look as offended at that one. He still looked horrified at the rest of the story.

 

***

 

Margo looked down at her crew, criss cross applesauce and wide eyed like a bunch of kindergartners. “Okay, here's the deal. The cocks are used to a land without weather, good thing I’m the ice queen.”

 

“For distraction you're proposing a blizzard?”

 

“I’m sorry, would you prefer we send in Fen with her knife?”

 

“I’m just saying its kinda extreme. It really took you two hours to come up with this plan.”

 

“If it was a normal heist, it would be a more normal plan Penny. But let's remember the part of the story where I got enough gold to  _ make  _ my own crown by sicking mind conrolled locusts on the poor bastards.” She said babying him.

 

“Okay nevermind, this is..remarkably on brand.”

 

“Okay, so I focus the storm on the warehouse. Then, Penny will travel in.”

 

“You think they  _ wont _ have traveller protection?”

 

“Look as much as I think they treasure their potatoes I thought of that too. Gravity belt.”

 

“What?”

 

“Fen, sweetie. Wanna use your knife?”

 

There was fire behind her eyes.

 

“Go cut off a chunk of that statute there. The bronze one. Probably have to set your knife to hot.

 

She did, and the spell didn’t take Margo long.

 

“It’s ratchet as hell, but you might get 10 minutes before it decides to combust. I’d recommend putting it somewhere far away round 7 though.”

 

“And I’ll float?”

 

“Anti Traveler sigils have to be on the floor dummy. All sigils are on the floor! Just don’t touch it or it’ll suffocate you.”

 

“Okay okay get it. Should we go now?”

 

“But Margo, what do I do?”

 

“Sweetie, you guard El and J, like you've been doing so well.”

 

“I’ve killed a spider.”

 

“It could have been poisonous.”

 

“To a corpse!”

 

“Just, don’t do anything stupid okay?” And she and Penny were off. She should probably shake this habit.

 

The plan had been going well. Margo made a blizzard, it felt like stretching a sore muscle. This kind of magic, despite being her discipline, always made her shiver. They scrammed like ants under a magnifying glass. Margo  enjoyed it more than she had meant to.

 

Penny glanced at her before he traveled inside. Thank God the guards had abandoned the place, cause Penny didn’t do ‘stealth’. She could hear him knocking shit over from here.

 

Her side was starting to hurt, she could feel the scars coming apart.

 

_ Just a few more minutes. Penny needs every minute. _

 

“Margo?”

 

“Fen?” Margo choked, “What the, fuck are you doing here?”

She managed to say that much before she passed out.

 

***

 

It had been a few days since Margo nearly fucked up mission impossible, her wounds had given her a fever.

 

“Margo, hey Margo? We made food, you want that right?”

 

“I feel sick Penny.”

 

She felt Fen run cool fountain water over her forehead.

 

“But you need to eat. It’s been days M. You need to be strong, to fight the fever. Why didn’t you tell us the niffin burnt you?”

 

“Cause it didn’t.”

 

“Did  _ you  _ then..” Penny whispered, horrified.

 

“No. Don’t say that in front of her.”

 

Fen looked embarrassed, to bad, she was young, way to young to hear about any of this shit.

 

“What happened to Julia, its happening to me.”

 

“What are you talking about Margo?”

 

“I told you I made a deal for the water.” She said horsley.

 

“What kind of deal?”

 

“Curse, we’re calling it a curse now.”

 

“Okay, curse.”

 

“I tried to steal water, like an idiot. It was after we were crowned, and I made him lift the curse on your hands with more gold than the prick deserved. I thought, just a little, I own it don’t I? Eliot needed it.”

 

“Eliot?”

 

“What about him didn’t need it? He’s sick Penny! He’s a junkie! He was, in  _ love _ with a dead man and couldn’t open his fucking eyes! I needed my Eliot again I needed to not take care of  _ everyone. _ So I stole some. I tried to pay but he cursed me anyway. I tried to fight it, big magic, I just made it stronger.”

 

“Tell me so I can break it and you live!”

 

“He said he knew I would give up everything for the miracles the water promised, so he said I would. My debt would be paid in full.”

 

“A nyad.” Fen said softly. She started explaining to Penny. “Creatures, they live in rivers or waterfalls. The water is like their blood, they’re in agony if someone drinks it or dumps garbage in it. It must have been great magic you tried to use against him, that he turned on you. To change the very essence of your body.”

 

“Yeah. Big magic. Now I pay for the river. The wounds, I take. I took the burn from Julia's crown, thought I could handle it. When I tried doing all that magic they opened up again. What I tried giving to Eliot? I was giving away part of my soul.”

 

“That's when he got better, started learning battle magic.”

 

“And he didn’t have a miracle. The river froze when my heart did. I’m not even sure if I have one anymore.”

 

“Margo that's ridiculous.”

 

“Really?” Weakly, with Penny’s quick protest, she dug a nail into her arm. It bled water. “The bloods Julias. I’m not human. Not even sure if I can die.”

 

“We won't find out, not for a long time.

 

Margo realized Fen was crying into her hair.

 

“Yeah, a long time. Stay with me Fen. Don’t get sick but maybe, hold me?”

 

Fen didn’t let go.

  
  


********

  
  


Margo got better, and the days dragged on. They hadn’t yet judged her for the deal she made, Penny made a point of treating her as human, aka fragile. This mostly involved frequent and I mean  _ frequent _ check ups. Guess Pennys fling with that healer chick wasn't as regrettable as they all thought it was.

 

Fen didn’t like leaving Margos side anymore, Margo would never admit she liked it that way. The three were huddled around a fire they made the old fashioned way, and were engaging in an infuriating but not mind numbingly boring passtime. Penny called it hot seat, something he played as a foster kid. Everyone gets to ask the most uncomfortable questions they can think of, and you answer honestly. Booze was usually involved, but it made you feel like you had something to lose when they knew your secrets. Like family, maybe.

 

“Who was your family, since you were orphans?” Fen asked.

 

“I wasn’t an orphan Fen.”

 

“But your parents gave you away? They sent you across the country, and you told me that your father forgot to take you home.”

 

“Once, when I was 9. And he didn’t _really_ forget. And I got the whole boarding school to myself for a few days while they tried to reach him, it was fun!”

 

“But who took care of you?”

 

“Julia took care of me.” Penny said, Margo was grateful for it. “Of been on my own for a really long time, then I met Julia. She was good at so many things. As much as I hate to even think it I'm a sucker for love. I don't think anything ever hurt more than when I saw the beasts hands around her throat. When parts of her started slipping away. But I still love her. When it comes to family she's the closest I ever got, after I got out into care anyway.”

 

“I'm sorry Penny.”

 

“For what?”

 

“Accusing you, of taking advantage of her after they died.”

 

She hadn't though she would ever say it. Penny seemed surprised.

 

“No, it's fine. And it'll all be better soon.”

 

“Yeah. It will.”

 

“And you Margo?”

 

“Eliot was my family. It was, co-dependent. Sometimes we felt like parasites. You knows there's nothing I wouldn't do..Can I tell you a secret?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“He was having a nightmare, before the beast, when you were just a student Pen. He always got depressed in November, it was when he last remembered having a family. They weren't good before then, but at least he had a house. He had his mom. When he came out his Dad wanted to kill him. I think Brakebills saved his life. His ticks got out of control when he had nightmares, I went to hide in the bathroom, his razor came at my throat.”

 

“What the fuck Margo.”

 

“Alice heard the banging, she stopped it  the second before it got there. We never really talked about it. It made me scared of him, I think it made it all worse. But I couldn't shake it.”

 

“Margo it was okay you were scared.”

 

“No, I was in love with him Penny, how did no one fucking see that!”

 

Margo quickly wiped a tear, tried running away. It took a moment to notice Fen hadn't left her side.

 

“Fen go with Penny I can't take care of you right now.”

 

“Your not going to. I'm taking care of you right now.”

 

“How could you Fen? How could you of all people! He fell for you I didn't think he could fall for a girl ever!”

 

“He didn’t. You think Eliot loved me? He cares for me, I’ll admit to this. He's desperate and he's scared so don’t pin what was his idea on me. But you love him so much, in so many ways. He can't love you in that one, and he doesn't deserve to.”

 

“So are you just insulting him now or what?”

 

“No, he's a good man, but he's broken. Something your water can't fix. That one he loves, the one he died for, he's the only one that stood a chance.”

 

“But I gave him everything! My body, my humanity!”

 

“Those things can't be taken from you Margo. I won't let them.”

 

“With what, your knife? Your fucking knife?”

 

“If I have to. You are dear to me Margo. I will protect all of you, I won't let you get hurt again.”

 

“You can’t Fen, you can't protect me from everything. I tried, and look where we all ended up! The niffin could kill you. Fuck the idea of you burning-”

 

Fen kissed her, it felt like Margos first. It was just, connection. That longing tugging at your soul like a child at their mothers hem, impatient and gnawing. It was warm and Margos lips were chapped.

 

“Nothing will happen to you Margo. I’m your family now.”

 

And so a family was forged in Nietherlands. For 7 months and 2 days Penny, Margo, and Fen stole and ate and laughed and cried. Penny slept beside Julia. Margo for once left Eliot’s side, she slept next to someone else.

  
  
  
  
  



	14. Playing God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julia plays God, A familar face.
> 
> Been awhile, heres what you missed on glee: Eliot made a deal with Hades, Q's shade could chose to return with him. Specifics unclear. Due to time being fucked uring the Eliot and Julia underworld adventure, Penny, Margo, and Fen, have been hiding in the Neitherlands for literal months. Fen and Margo got cosy, we learn Margo, in love with an unstable junkie*eliot*, tried to steal water from chatwins torrent (and was subsequently cursed) she now is a magical creature, nyad. Her blood, yeah its water, magic water being extra sprinkles on the cupcake, still shitty though. Reunion!

Margo called Eliot an asshole, Fen was forthholding, and Penny cried like a child.

 

“Fuck how long were we dead?” Eliot said commenting on their ragged clothes and Penny's too long hair.

 

“Awhile and fuck! Don't you ever die again!”

 

“Oh Bambi never. I know you'd find a way to kill me yourself.”

 

“We must go to Fillory. To summon his niffin.” Julia said, Penny still squeezing her.

 

“Right now? Jesus you two, did you even get his shade?”

 

“Well..”

 

“Eliot..”

 

“Hades struck a deal with us, if Quentins shade wanted to come, it would.”

 

“And did it?”

 

“We don't know.”

 

“Your fucking kidding me.”

 

“Look we were in an elevator Quentin was there but like 11 years old.”

 

“In sorry, what?”

 

“Yeah Quentin as a kid, couldn't talk because of course 11 year old Quentin was practically mute anyways.” Julia nodded in agreement, “Hades told us when the elevator door opened we would wake up, and Quentin could chose to walk through, we would just have no idea if he did, he'd kinda trail like, invisibly or something.”

 

“Well why wouldn't he?”

 

“Cause Alice is dead? Underworlds not so bad? I have no idea but **he** had to choose.”

 

Margo connected the dots rather quickly, and promptly cast a quick shield over Fen. She squealed in protest, but Margo ignored her.

 

“But Penny said without the shade, the meta-math doesn't add up. Without his shade we don't make him a body.”

 

“Yes. We could be summoning a niffin, and without the shade our spell wouldn't work.”

 

“And you set a magic murder monster loose on our kingdom! On  _ us!” _

 

“Margo this is an overreaction. You haven't seen the things I have!”

 

“You think because you had a couple hours adventure your suddenly smarter than me, who took care of you El! Who's been taking care of everyone? I'm not letting you murder our family over your crush!”

 

She felt guilty right after she said it, she knew with Quentin, it wasn't a crush, it was his lifeline.

 

“Quentin was part of that family too.”

 

Margo had a decision to make, she was usually quite good at them. She'd made a million, million more to save her friends, and she'd once heard every story starts with a choice. She thought about her blood that coursed through the river. Through Eliot and Julia. Through a goddamned dragon, all of which she could still feel. As their hearts beat, she felt another pulse. Someone holding her hand, reaching out through the shimmering shield that had been cast over her. So she made a choice that would suprise her.

 

“I trust Julia. She makes the call. And I won't help you with the spell, or consider us done.”

 

“Bambi..”

 

“I know you will do anything to save him, that's what love does. I don't trust  _ you _ , as a king, as a man, in love. Julia makes the decision, we box or save him.”

 

“What do you know of love?” Julia said.

 

“Too much. Now I've paid for your mistakes too Julia. So, make this choice, you. Make it a good one.”

 

Julia didn't expect this. She was a Queen too, and a rather good one. But she'd been the mad queen. She was the ambassador of exotic creatures, lurking in dark places. She didn't expect to be trusted with Fillory, the soul of her best friend.

 

“We save him. We save Quentin.”

 

The one thing Margo hadn't expected Julia to do was play God, and a revelation people with power have, is it is the loneliness thing in the world to be God.

***

They’d returned to the spot Quentin died, Julia did a dance from 10th grade to summon the niffin. The magic passed in a flurry, she was nearly blinded by the light of it. The batteries they had, all that power, it ran through her body like a semiconductor. She was forced to absorb some of it, it was a glorious feeling. First it was like burning, but the further it got, the more you wanted to laugh. Near the end she’d lost faith it would work, watched Margo and Penny look at her with teary eyes and felt regret.  After all to have it pure like this, being a niffin? How could he ever give that up?

 

Eliot finished off the spell, a pissed off niffin appeared, phased in and out of reality. Like a cage his body grew frigid and constricting around it. Soon Quentin was there, smoking and naked.

***

Eliot wasn’t sure what he expected, but he considered now, that Quentin had been forced out of that elevator. Hades wanted a good show, wanted to know if Eliot actually had the balls to try with the stakes. Because Quentin tried to choke Julia out first.

 

“What did you do to me! I'll burn you alive for this!”

 

“Julia!” Penny said putting himself between the two. Margo held Fen close, she was used to magical creatures, but she was whimpering.

 

Quentin continued, his whole self shaking. Those last bit of power leaving his cells. He grabbed the sides of his head, banging against them, before digging a finger into his shoulder, what was left of it. Most of it was still missing from when the beast sliced into it. He saw Eliots look of horror at it. He then proceeded to stick in as much of his hand as he could, and pulled. There was no relif in seeing him bleed, even if he dropped to the floor.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will finish this shit I swear!!!!! sorry for delay, after school fucked me like a penntin fic i dropped out of soceity, and ive been *trying to focus on my orginal stuff. anyway hope you like it, I know this is so outside of what the fandom usually is so happy if you guys stick with it!


	15. Burnt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pennys a radical, Margos overwhelmed, and Eliot goes against his morals

Quentin's arm had been pulled almost cleanly off, there was only so much the centaurs could do, and even then they did it hesitantly. They didn’t take too kindly to those who hurt themselves. When he woke up he was cold, and his glance would cut you in half. It didn’t stop Eliot from trying to hold his hand. Well, the one he still had anyway.

 

“Why did you do this Eliot?”

It was the first full sentence he had said.

 

“I thought, you would want to. You saved us, I needed to save you.”

 

“I don't even know why I saved you Eliot. I could have just as easily burned you all to the ground. I should have.” he spat.

 

“But you didn’t you still felt something.”

 

“You know Eliot, I really didn’t. All of it was just so.. Funny. Because it hurt, it hurts so much when I was burning, I didn’t think anything could hurt that bad, I hated my body for letting me even feel it. Then, when the last of me burned away, the top of my head and the tips of my toes at the same time, I couldn’t stop smiling. It was all so goddamn funny. I really don’t even know why I helped you, I think I was already bored.”

 

“But, you reached out to us right? In the mirrors? You didn’t mean to hurt Julia or anything.”

 

“I didn’t.”

 

“So you were trapped? We saved you.”

 

“Eliot, I was in the mirror realm because I wanted to be. I did experiments. I killed creature very, very slowly just to see how much magic I could harvest from the corpse. Then I saw the Dean's office from the other side. Made myself obvious.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I wanted you to come through, so I could burn you myself.”

 

***

Margo, simply, didn't know what to do.

 

“Margs, we need to talk about Quentin.”

 

“Yeah no shit Pen.”

 

“He tried setting himself on fire.”

 

“Shit.”

 

“He burned off the wooden arm he gave him. Tick took him to the centaurs again.”

 

“Is he burned?”

 

“Yes, but the centaurs can handle it. And before you try I already told the guards to keep you the hell away from the Torrent.”

 

“You can't do that.”

 

“Already did. And already told Fen too.”

 

“You cock.”

 

“Yeah a Cock that knows you. Now, Quentin. Eliot for that matter.”

 

“Eliot’s never going to get through to him is he.”

 

“Coldwater for better or worse, liked being a niffin. Thats why he keeps stealing knives or took a vow of fucking scilence. We took that away, and he was already planning on killing us.”

 

“Well what are you proposing?”

 

Penny gave her a look, he seemed hardly somber about it.

 

“No way in hell Penny.”

 

“You would do anything to keep Eliot safe right? Fen! What happens when he recovers enough to get his magic back, how powerful he'll be?”

 

“I'm not saying your wrong about that I'm saying..” They went silent as a guard walked past. “That there has to be another way to keep him under control. He's still our Q.”

 

“Like you're still the same person you were before the beast? Before the Netherlands even?”

 

Margo glared at him.

 

“Then I'll do it. You stay out of it. Only conditions you keep me safe after it's done. No blood on your hands.” Penny said.

 

“But Julia..”

 

“Is scared, and safer with him dead, even if she won't admit it.”

 

_ Fuck. _

 

“Were really doing this.”

 

“Were doing this.”

 

“Yup. We're doing this.”

 

Margo hugged him, her mind spinning with all the decisions she was being forced to make. It was like her blood (or what passed for it now) was being brought to a literal boil. So focused on holding back her tears, she didn't realize Eliot was on the other side of the wall, and had heard everything.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry again, ill try, and i gots new stuff to post later, jobs are my bitch, ta-ta!


	16. What Bodies Are Good For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> take a wild fucking guess with that chapter title

Part of Eliot acknowledged all of this was ludacris. He told himself he wasn't actually hurting anyone. He was saving the one her loved from them.

 

Quentin, somewhat dazed and now down an appendage, was beside him in a carriage bound for Chatwins torrent.

 

“What's the meaning of this Eliot.”

 

_ Oh, he speaks. _

 

Look I need to keep you safe. Penny is after you.

 

“Then why don’t you kill him?” Quentin snarled. After a few moments he felt a pang in his chest, a conscience he wasn't used to.

 

“I’m not going to.”

 

“Then what’s your plan?”

 

“The torrent, in the Fillory books it was meant to heal things. Give you power. I take it, much as I can. I should have enough juice to cast an incorporate bond.”

 

“...keep them trapped forever on earth, or the Netherlands..”

 

“And your safe. Fillory is ours.”

 

***

 

Quentin wasn’t sure how he felt about this plan, mainly because there were many Quentins at war in his head.

 

There was the Quentin he’d been the first 22 years of his life, a relentless insecure fantasist who was screaming to hide in a corner and scream for Julia.  Brakebills Quentin, who was learning getting exactly what you wanted is never good enough. Quentin who’d hurt Alice (and had briefly admitted to himself he was falling for someone else anyway), and had tried to save her life, and failed. But angry, with a big blue fire and without a soul, was the niffin. It tore at his shade and tingled in his fingers and toes. He would never stop burning. It would never stop wanting, and it didn’t care how it got what it wanted.

Quentin grabbed Eliot by the collar and pulled him in for a hungry kiss. He let out a surprised little noise before melting into it. Quentin grabbed at him and ripped his tie from his neck. It would probably bruise his throat.

 

The carriage halted to a stop. The two stumbled out and shooed the diver away, Quentin refusing to stop, Eliot attempting to retain a shred of kingly dignity, and failing under Quentins touch.

 

“Come on Eliot, show me what these pathetic fucking bodies are any good for.”

 

Part of him was disgusted by it, but so much more of him wanted it. This was the closest be felt to burning. Eliot was pulling his clothes off of him, and Quentin was reminded of what it felt like to be alive. As a niffin he’d seen everything since time began, watched his whole life play out from the beginning. He watched himself with Eliot over and over again.  It was better for real. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry its not like smutty but i just wanted to focus on the world lev created and explore new aspects of charcters. also me writing it would be hilarious


	17. Marked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> julias gulity and morals go bye bye, Margo just wants to take a fucking NAP

“Hey Jules.”

 

“Hello Penny.” She said softly, curling up once again under her blankets.

 

“You heard? About Quentin?”

 

“Just, how could he do that?” She said with a wobbling lip. Penny came over to hold her.

 

“He's not your Q Julia. He's not the person any of us knew.”

 

“Penny, I don't know what to do. All of this is just-Fuck! I brought him back from the dead now _this_ is the hard part.”

 

“You did all you could baby.”

 

“I didn't, I really didn't, for anybody.”

 

“Jules, you can't keep obsessing over what happened with the Beast. We need to put everything behind us.”

 

“I can’t Pen, with Q in front of me? I promised Alice I wouldn't.”

 

“You made that promise years ago now Julia.”

 

“No, I saw her in the underworld. She's like, the same person Penny. She's still scared and naïve, but powerful. Angry. She's still scared of herself. A little bit of her still loves him.”

 

“You promised to protect him didn't you. For her.”

 

“There was more to us than you knew about.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“We were best friends or, whatever the fuck we were. We hooked up, after Q cheated.”

 

“What?”

Penny wasn't sure if he was allowed to feel betrayed,

 

“I felt so damn guilty. I was angry and Quentin for letting all his shit gets the best of him. Hurting _my_ friend. Making me pick a fucking side! Then to be honest I took advantage of the situation and there was a _lot_ more between us than I expected there to be. I fucked up and they  _ died _ . Saving  _ me. _ Then I had the audacity to take her crown. Those self sacrificing- God why is it so hard Penny?”

 

Penny was rubbing her back, staring and the glints in her silver hair. A constant reminder of the friends she's lost. Alice's crown and Qs fire branding her for eternity.

 

“She's not happy there. She's miserable, and said she dreams of me. But I don't.”

 

“Then who do you dream about?”

 

“You.”

 

Penny held her even together. He was about to kill her best friend all over again. Was he really about to lose her? He couldn't lose her.

 

“Alice made me promise.. promise I wouldn't die young. Won't do what she did. Sacrifice myself.”

 

“Are you going to keep it?”

 

“Yes, and I know what that means.”

 

“What?”

 

“It means I can't save him, not like this.”

 

“Nothing's going to happen to us, okay baby? Nothing's going to happen to you.”

 

In all of Penny's battles in the Nietherlands, he'd almost taken pride in the fact that he'd never killed a man. He helped with the beast, but he hadn't killed him, and he wasn't a man. He wasn't even sure what he was meant to do yet. He didn't have time to think however, because his night--much to similar to the one Quentin had returned--was once again broken by a blood curdling scream.

 

***

 

Around the same time Eliot disappeared from the castle, Margo started burning alive.

 

“Fuck Penny what is happening to her!”

 

“I don’t know J I don’t know!”

 

She was canantonic, seizing on the throne room floor. Her fingernails had already pierced Fens pale flesh as she held onto her.

 

“Penny she can’t breathe!”

 

He attempted a quick healing spell to open up her airway, but boiling water spitting out of her.

 

“What the hell!”

 

Julia was performing a healing spell far more complex than his own, and Fen was screaming for cool water. Tick came with a whole bathtub of it, freezing to the touch. Penny made quick work of tossing her in, it did little to quell her shaking.

 

“It has to be the Torrent.” Fen said.

 

“How can this be the Torrent?”

 

“It's been frozen over since the beast died.” Julia quipped.

 

“Well it looks like me like someone tried to melt it.”

 

“No magician in Fillory has that much power.”

 

“All of you, all the children of earth do.”

 

A guard whispered in Julia's ear. 

“ Eliot left a few hours ago. The centaurs.”

 

Fen and Margo were left behind. Julia and Penny went to execute a plan neither has thought of yet. Children of Earth, long may they reign.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! In the US its the anniversary of gay marriage being legalized and also my birthday cause God has a sense of humor


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